Wake Up Call

I am officially in show mode. Last week started in Atlanta for showroom set ups for 2 accounts. One is very small, a window display and a small shift. The other is the massive. Peking Handicrafts showroom is about 10,000 square feet. While not the biggest showroom I work in, it is the biggest to try and do in a week. Usually we have about 7 days, this trip was only 5, really 4 1/2, if you count travel time.  

With all of the supply chain issues, the new introductions were very small and on top of it, the July show is usually slower. However, the workload does not change. The showroom still has to be completely changed for the show. We retailers (remember, I also wear the buyers hat) need to see new merchandise and new displays. It's what we get so excited about and gives us inspiration to take back to our stores

But cutting off, even for one day for a job this big, is CHALLENGING.

Day 1.  We head to the showroom, suitcases in hand, to create a game plan. At this point, I have already had calls and know what new introductions are planned but there is a whole lot you forget from one show set up to the next, so I go in the day before the real work starts to set a plan. I will walk the showroom, make notes on what we are shifting and where & what new displays we are building so Dave can measure etc... and we start tearing down. What does tearing down mean or look like? It's pretty much taking every little bit of display down. Pendant lights, plants, floating display pieces, focal furniture. Pretty much everything but the floating walls. Once that is done and organized, I start pulling the pillows off the walls and staging them outside the showroom in groups (camp, coastal, tween, holiday etc...) as we display them. THANK GOD that when we do these setups, we are in a part of the building that does not have a lot of foot traffic. If you could only see the number of pillows lining the showroom hall, you would be shocked. I am talking about hundreds of pillows. I do about 14,000 steps on tear down day, back and forth across the showroom, pulling pillows and piling them up. 

Day 2 starts with the build-up and trips to Home Depot, Ikea and Hobby Lobby for supplies and props and back to the showroom to continue what we started.

Day 3-5 are spent re building up the showroom, building fixtures from scratch, painting walls and doing the displays. It's a monumental amount of work in 7 days but in 5, it's truly an undertaking. But guess what? We did it! A lot of long days as well as a few cut corners but we did it and it's show ready for July! (If you attend, please tell me what you think! I'm pretty proud of it!)

This is where the wake-up call comes in....as you know, show season is only 2x a year. I spend months designing and setting up showrooms and when Las Vegas is complete I turn into a buyer again and do the show as a buyer not a merchandiser. Once I have finished, I am on to the next project, have magically forgotten how tired I was, how my feet and back hurt from both walking and standing on concrete all day long. You forget about the hours, lack of days off etc. You literally forget. 

And then WHAM... after your first set up, you remember...Oh yeah, it's show season. Again.

Cheers,

M

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